


Cringe

by Lionhearted7



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, song: cringe by Matt Maeson, subtle descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16511702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionhearted7/pseuds/Lionhearted7
Summary: Remember songfics? Cause I do, and this is one. Undertaker and Vincent have a conversation about Undertaker's newly acquired scars. Based around the stripped version of "Cringe" by  Matt Maeson.





	Cringe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrSpears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrSpears/gifts).



"Do I make you cringe?"

It's a valid question, one he wondered if he should even have to ask. He knows the answer, that he's made Vincent cringe for various reasons since the man was a boy. But now, with puffy red stitches in his throat and wrists and chest and fingers, parting gifts from his employment, he knows he must be truly repulsive. It's a miracle Vincent let him through the door, let alone into his familiar chair by the fire in his study.

"You don't move like you used to." Vincent allows himself, though Edwa- The Undertaker, always Undertaker now, knows he's hiding more than just his view on the violence that had befallen the Grey Man of Phantomhive. It's in the way Vincent holds his wine, the way he never looks directly at Undertaker's newly acquired adornments. "It isn't just from the wounds, is it?"

"Let an old man have some secrets, dear." He says, and his voice sounds more than a little weary, more than the usual cracks and pains wrapping around the words. "Even in death, such things take their time to heal."

"You've always had secrets, though, haven't you? You've always told me at least the half truth." Vincent's eyes narrow, regal chin tilting up, regarding the Undertaker with something like judgement. "You've done something horrible, something worse than you've done before. Something outside of your usual--"

"Vincent."

Undertaker stops him with his given name, something he's called him perhaps twice before. "Leave it, boy, you don't want to know more."

"Will it make me sick to know?"

Undertaker thinks of the words on the page, the dates in the book. The names, ones he knows, -Vincent, Rachel, Dietrich, Tanaka- and new ones he doesn't -Ciel, Astre- and glances, almost imperceptibly, at the clock on the wall. Time, time, time. Never enough time. He's got to find a way to cheat death, he who went so cheerfully to his own grave.

"I saw you in the water." When Vincent's confusion doesn't trickle out of his green eyes, Undertaker shrugs and clarifies, "I saw a speck of your ghost."

Vincent sits back, eyebrows a thin line. "You know when I'm going to die?"

"Something like that."

"You were able to find something like that out?"

"I have my methods."

"It's because you're dead, isn't it?"

"You've known that for years." Undertaker laughs, full-throated and delighted. "After all, it was you who so kindly helped me to achieve my well-earned coffin."

Vincent snarls, but says nothing. He waits. Undertaker lets him. Finally, the other man gives up, with a heavy weighted sigh.

"Very well, keep your every secret. I don't frankly care. For all I know, you're lying."

"You've always been able to tell lies from truth when I tell them, my little cruelty... why now is that talent escaping you?"

"You don't look like you. You look... you're bleeding your sins out all over, and all I can see is their stain."

Laughter, again, Vincent always has the cleverest way to say things. Once he collects himself, Undertaker looks him directly in the eye and grins, and there, ahhh, at last, he sees the corner of Vincent's eye twitch. The barest hint of a cringe.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I don't explain a damn thing. Perhaps one day, I will.


End file.
